Benefits and disadvantages of communist rule to education and youth groups (OCR A-Level History A): Revision Notes

Benefits and disadvantages of communist rule to education and youth groups

Mao Tse-tung with young pioneers

Socialist Education Movement

Mao believed that in order to control the country and follow his principles, education was key. He further believed that peasants should receive a quality education.

In 1960, Yang Xiu-Feng, the PRC's education minister, made reforms to the Chinese curriculum in which students were to adhere to a modern and scientific syllabus. The main aim was to create a new generation of skilled experts and technicians. Furthermore, children of the CCP officials would have the privilege of attending private school, an action that became controversial.

To strengthen Mao's aims, the Socialist Education Movement was launched by Mao in 1963 and lasted until 1966. Also known as the Four Cleanups Movement, the aim of this movement was to clean up the country's economy, ideology, organisation and politics. Intellectuals were sent to the countryside where they were educated by the peasants. Aside from attending schools, they also worked in factories.

Poster showing Chinese children learning how to read and write

Mao further believed that the class struggle and mass-line politics were very important and that the enemies were usually found in the party, as stated in Mao's Twenty-three Articles.

Four Cleanups

1. Economy

2. Ideology

3. Organisation

4. Politics

The campaign was followed by an attack on Wu Han, a Beijing writer and historian who wrote a play entitled Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. The story centred on Hai Rui, an official during the sixteenth century who criticised the Jiajing Emperor. As a result, he was removed from office and sentenced to death.

The people interpreted the play as synonymous to Peng Duhai's story, the defence minister who criticised Mao's Great Leap Forwards and was purged from the CCP. Mao's supporters criticised Wu Han, however, whose play was considered harmful to the people.

Five Man Group

Wu Han

Mao Tse-tung then perceived that art and literature could be dangerous for his government. Hence, in 1965, the Five Man Group was established under Peng Zhen's leadership. Its main function was to assess anti-political sentiments injected into dramas, history, law, literature and philosophy.

The Cultural Revolution Group

Peng Zhen, the leader of the Five Man Group, questioned the objective of the committee as he believed that culture should not be affected by political agendas. Hence, Mao Tse-tung disbanded the group on 16 May 1966 and replaced it with the Cultural Revolution Group. Peng was condemned and accused of being a counter-revolutionary. Together with the other three members of the group, they were purged from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Peng Zhen

A chain of Mao's vocal supporters became part of the Cultural Revolution Group, including head of government Zhou Enlai, Mao's wife Jiang Qing, his secretary Chen Boda, the security chief Kang Sheng, secretary of defence Lin Biao, and literary critic Yao Wenyuan, who personally wrote an essay condemning Wu Han's Hai Rui Dismissed from Office.

Members of the Cultural Revolution Group propaganda poster

Mao encouraged his loyal supporters to denounce bourgeois ideas embedded in academic writing. He summoned students from universities and colleges to rebel against their teachers, who were anti-revolutionaries.

As the students responded enthusiastically to Mao's heeds, he called them the Red Guards. He summoned them for a mass rally in Tiananmen Square on 18 August 1966. For six hours, the people listened to speeches by Mao loyalists. Mao gave free rein to these people in attacking those who were against Mao's socialism. When the group grew by one million members in Beijing, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began.

Mao at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art

The Thought Reform Movement started in September 1951 after a speech given by Premier Zhou Enlai, which called for intellectuals to change their thoughts.

Laogai camps

Thought Reform Movement

Intelligentsia who studied abroad were forced to confess, often under duress, to their role as 'implementers of the imperialist cultural invasion', while writers across the country were ordered to study Mao's speech 'Talk at Yan'an Forum on Literature and Arts' and engage in criticism of their own work. The People's Daily called for teachers and college staff to "arm oneself with the thought of Marxism-Leninism".

During the Thought Reform Movement, many university and school curricula were restructured with science and engineering made essential. Courses such as sociology, political sciences and economics were abolished.

Laogai camps were linked to Reform Through Labour. This was the Chinese system of labour prison factories, detention centres and re-education camps. Mao Tse-tung created them in the early 1950s based on the gulags of the Soviet Union as a way to punish and reform criminals in a way that the state could gain from economically.

Prisoners became cheap labour and this benefitted the Chinese economy. Prisoners were commonly associated with groups unpopular with the PRC. Hence, they were sent to a laogai camp. Once there, prisoners were subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and torture.

Laogai camp in China

90% of the prisoners in laogai camps were political dissidents while 10% of prisoners were criminals. Like the gulags in the Soviet Union, laogai camps were built in remote locations. According to studies, it's estimated that 15-25 million people died in the camps between 1949 and 1976. Another method used was the short-lived láojiào camps, or Re-education Through Labour for people who committed minor offences.